I found an old post from last year about the grandiose development our politicians have in mind for the muncipality Trosa. If you didn’t read it then, you might wanna read it now. English text you find below the swedish.

Vad vill du sätta ditt namn under?

What do you want to put your name under?
(english version below the swedish text)

I live in a town called Trosa. About ten years ago we had a brilliant future of eco-living development. But then something happened with our politicians. They became airheads and decided not to fullfill our eco-living plans.

They want to build a big loud road through our landscape though we don´t need it at all. But they say one thing and do another thing. So lots of people think that the politicians are right cause they listen to politicians instead of see what they are about to do with our town.

Our town were during many years a very popular tourist place. People come from all over the world to visit our little town. They still do, but not as much as before. Many of our little city qualities has disappeared lately.

If you want to be able to visit Trosa Sweden some day, and see our little town and our beutiful nature you can visit this facebook page and like it. It´s in Swedish, but maybe you can translate it somehow. I’m not on FB, so I don´t know how that FB thing works.

My family wrote the text to tell the public that the nature is no longer protected by the authorities that should protect it. It’s sad when authority people forget their responsibility to the public and nature. Sweden often brag about how uncorrupt we are. That’s not true anymore, we are as bad as any other nation. Money talks here too. We also brag about how great we are at democracy. We are not any more and that scares me.

This is the text in a google translation. Sorry if it’s hard to read. It’s not easy to translate all Swedish law words correct.

Trosa Municipality and the County Administrative Board extinguish the grand nature protection in Trosa

The Swedish nature protection rules shall protect the animal and plant life and provide public access to beaches and water. Responsibility for maintaining this protection is the municipality and county administrative board’s work.

The nature protection rules are simple. No action is allowed, therefore, exemption from the rules is required when you want to take action. To receive the dispensation, strong reasons, as defined in the law, are required.

The municipality and county administrative board also have supervisory responsibility. In case of suspected unlawful actions and when the notifier is known, there is an obligation to notify the notifier of appealable decisions. There is no legal possibility for the Authority to waive.

With the presumption that the municipality and county administrative authority protects nature and public interests, neither public, neighboring property or rights holders, which may be negatively affected by dispensation decisions, may have judicial decisions. The legislators have missed that the municipality and county administrative board may abuse the rules. There is no opportunity for the public to have obviously wrong exemption decisions tried in court.

This gap in the law has the municipality of Trosa and the County Administrative Board utilized the last three years in a case we are aware of. On an unclear basis, a property in the Trosa Archipelago, of the municipality and the County Administrative Board, has received immunity from the protection of nature rules in terms of assessments of applied dispensers and supervisory rules. Notifiers have also been refused appeal decisions for a period of three years on repeated occasions, although regulatory authorities are not legally able to do so. How the municipality’s management of the nature protection rules benefits the public and nature’s interests in this case is unclear.

In the cases We know about the entries contain the reported dispensing measures reported and the municipality and the County Administrative Board’s alternative interpretation of the dispensation rules. As the law applies equally to all and no one can be subdivided, all beach properties should be able to invoke the immunity from the protection of the sea, which the municipality and the County Administrative Board now appear to offer selected property owners in Trosa. However, it is unclear how property owners achieve such status.

This alternative application of the beach protection rules means that the public in the future may see a significant reduction in access to beaches when the notifier is refused enforcement decisions. Nature no longer has any protection of the beach protection rules, which may have fatal consequences. Nature and the public can not defend themselves but have to rely on responsible authorities to do right.

Owners of beach property can either be fortunate if they receive immunity from the protection of the beach, or they may suffer from inequality and infinite attempts to achieve correction in costly multi-year legal proceedings when wrong decisions are refused independent review.

We estimate, so far we know, that the municipality has deprived the municipality’s inhabitants of approximately SEK 150,000 (18 000 USD, 16 000 EUR) in the absence of dispensation revenue due to lack of supervision. Then, any supervisory fees and test amounts are not included. If the municipality has applied alternative interpreting, even in other cases, the amount that has been detached from the municipality’s inhabitants may be even greater.

It’s not trucks that run into crowds that threaten democracy, it’s authorities that act out of rules and make public and residents lawless that is the real threat to democracy.

Here’s a drawing I made a couple of years ago. Nature protection laws should preserve nature and public access to beaches in Sweden. But our authorities use the rules to protect some private landowners instead.